A book edited by Stephanie Pilat, an OU Professor of Architecture, and Kay Bea Jones received praise in a recent review for the European Architectural History Network. The book, “Routledge Companion to Italian Fascist Architecture,” considers the reception and legacy of fascist architecture and urbanism in Italy. It investigates how these historic sites have been transformed and what constitutes the meaning of these buildings and cities today.
The essays include a rich array of new arguments by both senior and early career scholars from Italy and beyond. Francesco Cianfarani, assistant professor of Architecture, authored three of these essays and served as a section editor. The essays examine the reception of fascist architecture through studies of destruction and adaptation, debates over reuse, artistic interventions and routine daily practices.
The review was conducted by Laura Moure Cecchini, a professor at the University of Padua in Italy. According to Moure Cecchini, the book “unpacks the afterlives of fascist architecture on the Italian peninsula and in Italy’s former colonies in the Mediterranean and in the Horn of Africa.” In her review, she argues that the book is sure to be a “touchstone for those interested in the fate of buildings once the violent regime that sponsored them no longer exist, and in the diverse strategies used to both preserve and resignify them.”
Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture congratulates Thinh "Henry" Duong, a master's student in the Division of Interior Design, for earning first place in the 2026 Robert Bruce Thompson Annual Student Light Fixture Design Competition.
Gibbs College of Architecture Institute for Quality Communities (IQC) Director and Division of Planning, Landscape Architecture, and Design (PLAD) faculty member Amber N. Wiley, Ph.D., recently published a new book, Collective Yearning: Black Women Artists from the Zimmerli Art Museum.
In May, students from the Christopher C. Gibbs College of Architecture's Architecture, Environmental Design, and Interior Design programs participated in an intensive five-day Studio in Residence at Taliesin West, the iconic winter home and desert laboratory of Frank Lloyd Wright.
